What If
by purplebass
Summary: My take on how the rooftop scene of 5x24 had to go. Happy ending.


Hi there! I started this one shot back when Ed and Leighton filmed the rooftop scene and I couldn't finish before tonight. It's quick and maybe not that great, but I wanted to share it. It's my take on how that scene had to go. Don't get me wrong, I liked the one in the episode, but I imagined it would go the way I described it in here.

Leave me your feedback! :)

...

He had imagined a lot of times how that day would go. He did not want a luxurious party. He did not want the press or anything. He just needed to spend that day with the people who really mattered to him.

There were not many people that could be defined as such in his life, but numbers are not important in life, quality is. Or at least that was what he always thought. You can hardly find a best friend who supports you and to join your adventures. He did have many acquaintances, but of friends, or so called best friends, he didn't have much.

He could count on Nate, his very first best friend since kindergarten. He could rely on his step mother Lily and step sister Serena. He could trust Eric, his step brother. And he thought he could still count on her to same extent.

She was still his number one, the only woman he've ever loved. The first girl who took his breath away and gave a meaning to the word love. He had had many women, but they could not measure up to her. No one had been able to catch his heart and interest him the way she did. He had never tried to substitute her with someone else, and he was of the idea that there was really no one in that city nor in the entire globe, that could take her place.

But that could not go on for long.

He had never truly stopped loving her, even when they were not together and with somebody entirely different. Right now, he was waiting. Waiting that she would make up her mind and remember the incredible bond they had created few years before in a dimly lightened club first, and in a vehicle later. He had never moved past from it.

He was not sure of the reason why he still kept the hope alive. He thought she could change idea sooner or later, realize that she had to be with him and that pact with God she had stipulated, did not mean anything anymore. He was alive, and he would keep being alive. There was not any God or religion that could let him die just because she had promised something to him.

But once the pact stopped being valid, she had forgotten everything. Every single memory was lost. He loved her so much, but she did not love him the way he deserved, she had told him. What was that supposed to mean?

Maybe it just meant that it was a lost cause? She would not love him like before?

He did not know what to do. In the meantime, he would keep loving her despite she did not look like she loved him the same way.

She was probably the only person he would love to spend that day with. You turn twenty-one just once in your life, and you would want to celebrate it well. A lot of people love to do it by drinking as much as they can. He did not need drinking, he was used to it. He had tasted single malt since when he was eleven, and since then he had not stopped sipping at least a glass a day.

Other people would try to get in only adults clubs, but he was used to that too. As far he was concerned, he owned at least thirty of those. He could check on each when he desired, without having to show his ID to anyone and prove he is of age.

Rethinking of it, turning twenty-one was nothing special.

And that was why he decided to spend that day alone, drinking in an empty bar at his own place. He found it so miserable and predictable – given that he often ended his nights that way, but he did not have a better ending to look forward to. He won't have the chance to spend the remaining moments of day with the woman he loved cuddling in his bed, or watching a movie on the couch and falling asleep with her head on his shoulder. He did not have the possibility to get a different ending, above all when he did not want to move on and love someone else.

He sighed at the thought that he would spend the rest of his days going to random events and finish his long days all in the same way until his death. It would be unbearable. But after all, what could he do? It was taking time to get over her, he only had to keep waiting.

He ordered the usual drink. This time he was not at the bar of the ground floor. His father had just ended whatever future for himself he had in mind and now he was livid.

He did not want to go back to his room despite it was almost midnight. He wanted to deceive himself into thinking something would still happen before the day would change and it would not be _his_ day anymore. He smiled at the glass of scotch securely gripped in his hands. Nothing would happen, he was sure of it. It was too late and he was not a child anymore. He would delude himself, but he would not actually do it completely. He was not a dreamer. He was a realist.

He drank the rest of his glass and poured new liquid soon. It was sad that his only companion was scotch, but at the moment he was not sure of how to change that.

Some waiters were cleaning the tables in the room next to his and he could only hear their footsteps on the marble floor. It was the only sound he could hear besides his gulps. A well known music he was used to. But at some point, it changed.

He did not bother to look up and check if a waiter had accidentally let a glass fall on the floor, or something similar had happened. He did not care. That new sound got closer and closer to where he was sitting, and that was when he realized there was another person in the room and that noise was made by her ticking heels.

He did not open his mouth in surprise when he saw her, despite he really wanted to. He was not sure she was real, there in front of him. He thought he had already drank too much alcohol and that he was having hallucinations. It could not be that...

She did not smile, she just stared at him. She looked like a lost child, he thought.

"Can we talk for a moment?" she asked, and she seemed really shy. The lights were low but he could tell she blushed a little.

He just nodded his head and pointed to the balcony after he put down his beloved glass of scotch. She was the first one exiting the room and he shortly followed her. He asked himself why she came there, in the middle of the night. It was not late, but he figured she would be somewhere else with somebody that wasn't him.

He could not hold himself until the ledge of the rooftop, and so he said something. He did not know if it was harsh or not, but he did not care. "I thought you would have left by now."

"I couldn't leave without talking to you." She answered without turning. When she stopped and finally turned to him, her eyes were wet but she was not crying yet.

He did not think it were his words that were bringing her to tears, despite he could see her eyes a bit glossy. It was probably the hot wind blowing that was making her tearing up. "I thought you told me everything. It doesn't matter that I'm in love with you. You're not going to stay."

She looked down and sighed. "But it matters to me" she murmured.

"It's true that love makes a person feel alive, but it turns to masochism when that love is not reciprocated. I can love you all that I want, at the end of the day I am the one alone" he said with no remorses. If she was going to leave soon, she had to know what he thought about that. He had held his thoughts for long and that was the last chance to reveal them. "Your love is keeping me alive but I can't survive with that anymore. It's consuming me. There's nothing I can do to change that. No matter how many women I sleep with, I can't move on."

"I am not the only woman on Earth" she said matter-of-factly.

He nodded. "But you are for me. And I know how you feel about me and I accept that. I think you should accept that I can't come to love another woman after all I've shared with you."

She sighed. "You deserve to be happy. I can't make you happy."

He made a bitter giggle. "I think you underestimate yourself." He said with coldness. "You have really no idea of how much my life changed when I was with you. I thought I was happy with booze and women and that I would keep living my life like that until the day I'd be buried, but then I had my chance at happiness and I ruined it."

She raised an eyebrow. "You can still have your chance at happiness, because -" her voice cracked in the middle of the sentence.

He shook his head and smiled. "You make it easy. It's not."

It was true he was being masochistic and was not willing to give up despite she seemed like she did indeed give up on him. She could not fathom how she was important for him. Hell, maybe she knew it but wouldn't want to accept it. He was aware that she wanted him to be happy and didn't want him to suffer because at the moment she had her head somewhere else.

It was hard for him to bear it but he could not move on. He didn't want to try either.

"Why did you come here?" he repeated, his voice cracking and urgent.

She took a deep sigh before answering. "I... I've got this from your father. He gave it to me while I was climbing the stairs to get here" she said as she took something from her pocket and gave it to him. "I didn't know you still had it."

He shook his head a little and examined the box. "Neither did I."

"I thought you had returned it for good" she murmured, a bit melancholic. She couldn't take her eyes off the blue velvet he was holding in his hands.

Chuck looked up and he seemed quite lost in his thoughts. "I haven't."

"Why?"

He seemed to take all of his strength to answer. "I thought someday I would need it again... and I could use it. But maybe I was just deceiving myself."

"Nothing is lost, Chuck."

"What about you?" he asked her.

Blair sighed and walked closer. "I need to tell you something before it's too late" she said in one fast phrase. "The reason why I came here tonight is not to say goodbye. But to tell you that I am not going to leave for Italy. I can't leave anymore."

"Why?" he asked, rather incredulous.

"Because I love you. I've always loved you and only you" she explained with a broken voice. "I was trying to run from that feeling by dating someone else but I realized that I was just making myself unhappy."

"Then why did you refuse to be with me after your marriage ended? I was waiting for you."

"I was scared" she whispered. "Scared of many things. To be let down or betrayed... to love again. I've tried to ignore what I feel for you but it didn't disappear. Instead, it got stronger."

He was looking at her in silence. He didn't know what to answer to that. "Is that the way you feel about me?" he asked, and she nodded.

"I love you" she repeated. "I'm in love with you. The only thing I can't wait to do now is build my life with you. Together."

"I – I don't know what to say to this" he said with a cracked voice.

"Just say yes" Blair said, her tone inviting and her lips forming a little smile.

He sighed and looked down at the velvet box in his hands. "If I say yes, would you say it back?"

She smiled and got cheerful. She murmured softly. "Is that a proposal?"

"Would you mind?"

She giggled and then offered him her hand. "Yes" she said more loud as he carefully took the diamond ring out of the box to slid it on her finger. "Now it's your turn" she added.

He frowned, kinda confused. "What?"

"Chuck Bass, would you mind building your future with me?" she asked as she took something out of her little handbag, her old heart pin.

He smirked. "Of course not" he said with conviction.

Blair shook her head and took his hand in hers to give him her heart. "That's not the right answer" she made a face at him.

He smirked and laughed before he sighed to say the word. "Yes."


End file.
